


Steve Dangle and the season that was

by DarkWaterFalls



Series: The Steve Dangle Show [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Analysis, Gen, Hockey, National Hockey League, Social Media, YouTube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-22 15:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8290342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkWaterFalls/pseuds/DarkWaterFalls
Summary: The 2016 NHL season has been wrapped up completely! Steve Dangle looks back on the last year, focusing on his new favourite non-Leafs player.---Steve Dangle Glynn @Steve_DangleJack Zimmermann's rookie NHL season is over, shall we take a look?





	

**Author's Note:**

> This work is a sequel of my previous Steve Dangle video stories, and will probably be the last in the series.
> 
> Many thanks to Alyssa for creating the Welcome To The Show 'zine!
> 
> As before, reading the others and seeing the videos is not essential, but may help your understanding of the tone and context of the fic.
> 
> Recommended views:  
> [Dangle: The Penguins win the Cup!!!](https://youtu.be/4rkMiebOhMU)  
> [AUSTON MATTHEWS IS OFFICIALLY A LEAF!!!](https://youtu.be/_ZE3qjadoNk)  
> [Hockey Night in Scotland](https://youtu.be/5F2xfZRqYy0) (shoutout to my home country)

Steve fiddles with his camera, and says, “Forgive me guys, this thing has been a bit funny for the last few days, but hopefully it’ll work.”

 

Steve settles in his seat, in front of his camera, arms open wide, showing off the crest on his Providence Falconers t-shirt and filled with false cheer. “Hey, the playoffs are over! The awards are over! The Draft is over! You know what that means?”

 

He slumps down onto his desk and mumbles, “The offseason beckons.”

 

He raises his head. “I hope that, like me, you’re looking forward to your favourite players flooding social media with pictures of babies, cups, golf, and holidays that you can’t afford to go on because you have a mortgage to pay and can’t get the time off work.” Steve sits his chin in his hand and stares at the camera. “Know what it also means though?

 

“It means that all those hockey stations that you’re paying your hard-earned dollars for are gonna be struggling to find things to grab your attention!”

 

Steve shrugs. “I mean, you can only watch the playoffs again a few times before it gives you a hernia and you start contemplating why you like this sport in the first place.

 

“So what happens?

 

“Thought pieces, and countdowns, and chortling interviews with retired NHL players as they speculate and criticise their younger counterparts, as if there hasn’t been a massive increase in health and fitness since they were playing in the league.

 

“So, yeah. Hockey media is pretty much a money grab and a backstabbing fest right now, with everyone diving to see what hits they can get on their hot take on Kent Parson’s equipment choice, or on whether Washington state, BC and Alberta are gonna attempt some sort of black hole merging to try and get a functional hockey team out as an end result.”

 

Steve leans forwards and whispers, “Sorry Canadian teams, better luck next year! We’ll still have the World Cup to come too!

 

“So, let it not be said that this video series isn’t a beacon in the night, a last bastion of decent thought, a place free of grainy videos of the same top 50 goals of all time.”

 

Steve waves his hands, jazz hands style. “We’re gonna do a season recap instead!

 

“And y’know, sometimes when you want to do a season recap… as a Leafs fan, you gotta expand your horizons a little. Especially since my team hasn’t played a single game for the last two months, they’re not exactly fresh in my memory right now.

 

Steve lifts his little cut-out of Auston Matthews and says, “I’m sorry Auston, you haven’t started playing yet and haven’t inked a contract, and I’ve already done a draft video, so maybe next year?”

 

Steve pauses and purses his lips. “So what am I gonna talk about then?

 

“It isn’t gonna be the Penguins, and their cup win, I’ve already talked about that.

 

“I’ve already talked about the playoffs as much as I can, really.

 

“It isn’t gonna be the draft, I’ve already talked about that at length, and ran around the Sportsnet studio and almost lost my job over it.

 

“So what am I going to talk about?”

 

Steve starts tapping his chin with his finger, and then brightly says, “I could talk about Kent Parson! He won his third Art Ross trophy, and the Hart again this year!”

 

Steve wilts down, “But, then again, everyone is talking about Kent Parson. Dude looks like he could use a break from it.

 

“Oh, wait!” Steve exclaims. “I didn’t show you my new t-shirt!”

 

Steve gets up and turns his back to the camera, the name ‘Zimmermann’ spread out across his shoulders.

 

Steve sits back down and says, disbelievingly, “I can’t believe that people are still signing off on these videos, that people still watch them. Honestly guys, the number of views I get are terrifying.”

 

“Okay, so, let us start with numbers. Jack Zimmermann’s first NHL season in numbers, to be specific.

 

“He played seventy five of his possible eighty five games, sitting out for three weeks in February for an unconfirmed separated shoulder. 

 

“In the regular season he had forty four goals and fifty assists, six of those goals coming on shorthanded breakaways, putting him in fourth place in the contention for the Art Ross. He also came second in the vote for the Hart, beaten quite soundly in both by Kent Parson.

 

“Each game he averaged top line minutes, between nineteen and twenty two, and he usually played on a special team, varying between PP and PK through the season. Face off win percentage was a respectable 52%.

 

“But of course! Numbers don’t mean anything to you! You want to hear the stories, you want to hear the talk about what he brings to the team, to the game. Using buzzwords like ‘grit’ and ‘heart’, and talking about how he plays on a team.”

 

Steve raises a finger in the air. “So let’s go back and look at what we know about Jack Zimmermann, what he was touted as in his draft year of 2009.

 

“He was seen as a power forward, a strong centre. A playmaker who isn’t afraid to crash the net, get down and dirty to get the puck. Someone who you could rely on to consistently win at the faceoff dot, and score goals.” Steve shrugs. “Sometimes trash goals, but goals nonetheless.

 

“Well, his first NHL goal happened during his first NHL game, on his first NHL shot, during a home game against the Jets, and his first NHL hat trick happened on the 8th of December, when the Falconers were away at the Bruins. In a game where the Falcs completely and utterly outclassed Boston - from the Falcs’ perspective, their long-standing divisional rivals - and Zimmermann led them to it.”

 

Steve then started stroking his chin sardonically, saying breathlessly, “Then something strange started to happen over the first few months of the season, people started to notice that it looked like a much older and more experienced player was… gasp... somehow playing in Jack Zimmermann’s skin!”

 

Steve rolls his eyes at the camera.

 

“He played in two of the Falcs’ preseason exhibition games, wearing an A in both, centring for two different lines of young prospects who are all initially destined for the AHL, but may make an NHL line up in the future. And Zimmermann made them look good by association. He came out of those two games with six points, two goals and four assists.”

 

Steve waves a hand. “But no one seemed to be paying attention, and I mentioned this on the podcast at the time, so I started watching him more closely.

 

“And one of the things you notice about Zimmermann on the ice is that he is a mouthy guy, and I don’t mean that in a bad way.”

 

(Steve gestures at his face, “It’s the cheekbones, they make him seem more severe, make him seem more serious.”)

 

“He talks to his teammates, he talks to the refs, he talks to the coaches, and he talks to the opposing team. There very rarely seems to be a break in play where he isn’t talking to someone, discussing something, or just laughing at something Mashkov has said on the bench.

 

“He’s honestly so involved, I didn’t know why they didn’t just give him an A right out of camp. It’d make the refs trying to mediate with him look a lot less awkward at least.

 

“But you can tell, you can see it on the ice, Zimmermann is a team player. He cares so deeply about his teammates.” Steve chuckles. “He may not be like Bad Bob, ready to throw down the gloves at a perceived slight against his team, but he’s sharp, he remembers. He’ll bury the hatchet after a bad check, but you’ll be damn sure remember where it’s been buried and who targeted his teammate.

 

“Zimmermann is one of those players who sees the ice as a battleground, as a series of skirmishes in an overall war to be won.

 

“Now, hold with me on this one,” Steve squawks, “He was a history major, the metaphor makes sense!

 

“He views the ice, and sees how plays pan out. All those horrendous play drawings on the tiny whiteboards they keep at the bench? He knows what those lines and squiggles mean, he knows what he’s drawing when he plots out a play, he knows how his teammates skate, and he knows how to draw out their abilities, how to play them to their best potential. The ice is a battlefield - a chessboard - and it’s a game that Zimmermann knows how to play very well, a fight he knows how to win.

 

“He threw himself into playing for the Falconers from the start of the season, engaged with the coaches, and it seems that he’s dragged the rest of the team willingly with him. He’s experimented with his use in special teams, worked on his defensive play extensively, backchecks like a fiend when he’s on the ice, and has spent enough time on the PK this season that the phrase ‘Zimmermann on a breakaway’ felt like a constant presence in any postgame report on the Falconers between November and December.

 

“He encourages his teammates to experiment, to try out risky plays that he thinks might work. He supports other players when they’re going through rough patches, and he’s been shown to be engaging to rookies and young AHL call-ups.

 

“He encourages players to engage, to work like a team.

 

“Quietly, gently, gaining traction over the course of the season… until the Falconers hit the playoffs with all the momentum of a runaway freight train.

 

“The Falconers achieved the playoffs with ease for the first time in about… honestly, probably a decade!”

 

Steve shakes his head. “I just look back at the March games in the Eastern Conference and it blows me away. People were loudly wondering about the Penguins and their injuries, the Capitals and their dominance, the race for the wild card spots… and then suddenly it's early March and people finally start paying attention to the Falconers.

 

“Paying attention, and getting scared.” Steve says, nodding seriously. “Because the Falconers had a run of divisional rivals for their last half dozen games, and they used it to solidify their second place standing behind Tampa.

 

“And to…” Steve squishes his hands together in a rubbing motion. “Systematically destroy any hopes that other divisional teams had of gaining any extra points from them after they’d already clinched.

 

“And with that information, are you honestly still surprised that he came top ten in the Selke voting? Top six for the Lady Byng?” Steve shakes his head. “Shame on you, you really haven’t been paying attention.

 

“Now, for all Zimmermann is loose on the ice, with his team, with the game that he is paid to play professionally…” Steve smirks. “He is definitely not that with the media.

 

“He’s been burned numerous times for non-engagement in media scrums, for refusing to answer re-phrased questions, for presenting the media face when people want to see blood, sweat and tears.” Steve grimaces. “Particularly after that game seven loss to the Penguins.

 

“You could see it in his eyes, hear it in his answers.” Steve sighs. “The last thing he wanted was to be sitting with a camera in his face, but he dutifully plodded through his answers, gave condolences to Providence, thanked Pittsburgh, and promised that the Falconers would be back to try again.

 

“He honestly looked like he just wanted a hug, and then to be allowed to go scald himself in the shower.” Steve sighs sadly. “He was such a far cry from the quietly - carefully - happy person that you catch glimpses of in the Falconers PR videos.

 

“And people criticised him for it, for not being more visibly upset.

 

“As if he hadn’t led his team in scoring, as if he hadn’t looked like a Conn Smythe candidate… all the way up until the end of the Eastern Conference Finals.”

 

Steve pauses, and considers the camera. “So I’m quite happy that the NHL got something right this year, and that it feels like they’ve actually been paying attention to Jack Zimmermann’s first year in the NHL.

 

“Jack Zimmermann attended the NHL awards in Las Vegas, was picked up from the airport by Kent Parson, was pictured having dinner out with Parson, and arrived in the same car as Parson, quietly laughing and looking like he wanted to be anywhere in the world except an award ceremony.

 

“An award ceremony that presented him with the Calder Memorial Trophy – six years too late, you could argue.

 

“An award ceremony that presented him with the Ted Lindsay Award.

 

“An award ceremony for a sport that he’s previously admitted that he didn’t know if he was going to be able to return to.

 

“A sport that has just named him, as decided by his peers, the most outstanding player of that season.

 

Steve giggles. “Not bad for some college hockey, eh?”

**Author's Note:**

> Please, come shout at me about hockey! I'm clareithromycin on tumblr.
> 
> (Please, especially come shout at me about my feelings about what player(s) Jack Zimmermann is based off of, because I feel like I've made it pretty obvious here. Or maybe not? I don't know.)


End file.
